My painting was inspired by the artwork “dancing mutants” by Hernando R. Ocampo. I chose to paint about the Hiroshima bombings because the stories of what happened really interested me. Hearing about the people who suffered, especially innocent families and children, made me feel both sad and shocked. I couldn’t imagine what it would be like to have everything destroyed in an instant and to live with the pain afterward. War isn’t just about battles—it ruins lives. Also I wanted to show more about the people who fought and the actual plane and bomb that killed 90,000 people and I wanted to show that in my painting.

I wanted the background to be blues,greens and black to show the boldness of war. But on the other hand I wanted to show the blues and green to show how the plane travelled to drop the bomb. I wonder if Paul Warfield Tibbets JR (the pilot who dropped the bomb) second guessed or wanted to turn back on his journey and how people always have a choice. I used the yellow plane stencils to contrast the back. The number 64 reflects how many cities in Japan were affected by the bombings. As well as this, the E’s scattered around the canvas represent the name Enola Gay ,which was the name of the plane that dropped the bomb on Hiroshima)

Overall, I liked how my painting turned out. One thing I would’ve have done differently or if I had more time was clear it up and make it look less messy. But I liked how the plane stencils turned out and how they contrast the dark background